Erkki

That was never shown at E3 or anywher I think. That was the year when they skipped E3 because Newell wasn't happy with the prototype. I'd like more "cutscenes" too. Not necessarily longer, but maybe less urgent that let you explore the place without someone nagging you to follow him/her. Most, if not all of the scenes had me enter a human-inhabited place, fight the Combine or listen to the rebels talk, then someone practically dragging me along. Of course, you could still search for ammo or health packs and not follow the person right away but it would have been nice if the player could choose when to move on.

THIS WAS ON THE LOCAL NEWS TODAY! I can't remember when a game was covered by the TV news here last time. If ever. It was the last bit though, they always have a 'curiosity' or whatchacallthem after the sports news. It showed brief interviews with Ted Kennedy I think and the game's creator or something. Didn't catch all they said, I was in the other room.

Umm... this has spoilers so I posted here. Was anyone else disappointed by Ravenholm? For me it would have been cool if they had just compressed it into a smaller level maybe, but it seems they cut out some of the cool traps and it was mostly just zombie-shooting. One of the parts from the E3 demo / leaked version wasn't there. I think that part had Combine soldiers so maybe they cut out everything related to the Combine from Ravenholm.

I tried the demo... this is BARELY a game at all. You stand in a window, able to turn around and aim and it says in the full version you can actually fire bullets. In the demo you just watch the motorcade drive by. This is obviously a cheap expoitation.

Yep, about 1 GB.

Umm... wrong link perhaps? This was already posted...

It's this old action/RPG/adventure from Psygnosis, kind of like Eye of the Beholder and similar games. I played it a long time ago, and loved it, but perhaps mainly because I had played nothing else like it before. Back then I was really a big fan, I even made maps of the dungeons in MS Paint and uploaded them to some BBS-s. Psygnosis made some really good games...

The bastards. I didn't want counter-strike either but there was no option of not downloading it (as far as I noticed).

Blabla. I thought maybe you had the Steam version and hadn't preloaded all, but of course I forgot you said you have Dialup...

How?

Why didn't you buy the DVD version?

I also saw G-man in water hazard standing on a bridge above me. A little before the dam I think. The bridge also had those things that pull you up to the ceiling and eat you (what was their name?)

Yeah, I guess you're right.

Oops... I was splitting my post for that other thread and forgot to specify -- not IN a barn, but in front of it, but he did go inside when I got closer or stared from afar. The barn is higher from the ground and has a crane and you can enter it.

I agree completely Chris, you put it better than I could have. And you may take over my job as devils advocate now BTW. <nitpick mode> What Barney said was more like "He was about to board the express to Nova Prospekt" so I guess that would have been if Gordon had went through the other gate instead of following Barney, not if he had stayed on the train. City 17 was the final destination for that particular train ...

My first play through I thought the game wanted me to race through the "Water Hazard" chapter and especially in the beginning of it I didn't really pay any attention to my surroundings because I thought all the scenery was butaforic... now I actually found some secret rooms and other cool stuff and getting off the boat to fight the combine instead of racing past them. This time it doesn't actually seem overly long and is even more fun, but I haven't gotten to the helicopter yet. I'm loving it more and more and paying more attention to the details.

I don't think I ever noticed the G-Man in the game the first time I played. Now I got to the "water hazard" chapter (or the ending of the previous one) and saw him in that barn.

umm.. can't make out much. international investments? GNP? noncommerce organisations, nominal ummm.... teachers and directors? liquidation, reorganising business, licenses: construction, tourism, transport, gaming, baaaaah

Sorry... though they aren't any big spoilers and you'll forget everything when you start to play because Trep edit: what... no frying pan?

Wait so it needs to download a lot of data while unlocking? I didn't know that. I thought it was just decrypting something ... You have the retail version right?

Well, most of the spammers just seem to be happy that they've obtained some e-mail addresses, not caring who's behind them if enough people of the target group receive them anyway.

Well, you sound kind of dumb for dismissing that opinion as dumb (just kidding) But it's true in part. I don't agree with it to that extreme, but why did etc. those were just examples but the general feel was always the same. Every NPC seemed to know what I was supposed to do, but I was like William Blake (in Dead Man) moving through the world doing what Xebeche told me to do, never questioning it. I loved that movie, but that same concept doesn't fit in HL2 so well. That's also part of what I meant by the overall structure of the game not being that great. [edit]Umm... didn't someone here say (or maybe it was TTLG) that in Half-Life 1 this style works well because you are in a closed space and seemingly there is no other choice to go where you go and do what you do. But in Half-Life 2 it doesn't apply that well. edit2: added spoiler tags

It takes 15 minutes or so even if you have a fast connection as far as I know.

Somewhat unrelated but it's pretty funny that before Doom was released, there was talk about features like leaving your bullet marks on the walls that would stay forever so if you got lost you could find your way back. Like Ariadne's thread. Somewhy that is one thing I remember very clearly as I read it many times on a local PC magazine of that time which didn't publish it's second issue until much later... : ) But even in todays FPSs, decals disappear over time or when they reach a number limit. Or do they in Half-Life 2? At least did seem to stay on bullet-proof glass when I kept pounding at it.

My opinion of the game is now finalizing. Here's what I think: If Valve truly wanted to create the best PC game ever, they failed. But does "best game ever" even exist? I don't think there are ultimate categories like that when it comes to any medium. Best movie ever? Come on... But it probably does make into most people's Top5-Top10 lists. I'm actually not sure yet if it makes into mine... I started replaying it again, this time on the easy difficulty. I was slightly disappointed by it, but the disappointment didn't come from pre-playing hype but I formed certain expectations in the beginning of the game, which was really story-packed compared to the rest of the game. All the game elements are absolutely brilliant, well, except the story. But they are not "perfect" (to emphasise the quotes -- I don't mean literally perfect). Making a game of a smaller scope may mean you can do each element near-perfectly. But Valve tried to do so much that doing everything perfectly was not even a possibility. It's actually amazing how much they did do really really well. The game was kind of weirdly structured. On one hand the amazing atmosphere suggested things beyond those levels you play and the interactions possible, but the game's overall structure was extremely level-oriented -- with many of the gameplay elements being specific to the chapters they appeared in. I think they should have spread them out a bit more. Short summary -- great individual elements, less great overall structure.